Serjoscha Evers
sirjoscha.bsky.social
Serjoscha Evers
@sirjoscha.bsky.social
Director of Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken, Bayreuth, a regional museum of the Bavarian State Collections of Natural History | Pala(e)ontologist with reptilian bias | Associate Editor for Journal of Systematic Palaeotology | turtle evolution
November 14, 2025 at 7:38 AM
#2025SVP - we could have had this in Germany straight away, folks - would have saved me a flight.
November 11, 2025 at 7:11 PM
#2025SVP ! If you want to get an idea of the major steps of 🐢turtle🐢 evolution, come to see my talk on Friday, Nov 14, 8:30 AM, Hall 8. My student Guilherme Hermanson talks just before me (8:15). 4 years of macroevolutionary research on turtles went into our talks, covering many unpublished results.
November 5, 2025 at 11:25 AM
@seishirotada.bsky.social & colleagues explore the evolution of rostral vasculature in turtles – a topic close to my personal interests due to my carotid and overall skull-CT work. Fantastic images in this one!

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
October 7, 2025 at 8:20 AM
New papers in the Turtle Evolution Symposium Proceedings! Juliette Menon & Walter Joyce published a paper re-describing a Cretaceous sea turtle – but the main story here in my opinion is the homology statements regarding neural positions. Brilliant student work!

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
October 7, 2025 at 8:15 AM
For #FossilFriday, here is the holotype of Pistosaurus longaevus (UMO BT-682) from the collections of the Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken in Bayreuth. I’ve removed the specimen from exhibits to have it photographed for a research project.
September 26, 2025 at 2:20 PM
The study was conducted by @spichergael.bsky.social & colleagues (@feikosaur.bsky.social) & published today in @mfnberlin.bsky.social's Open access journal Fossil Record. Congrats to all authors! It's available here: fr.pensoft.net/article/1542...

Fossil & artwork to be exhibited at UMO in future.
September 25, 2025 at 2:36 PM
News @ Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken (UMO) in Bayreuth: new ichthyosaur, Eurhinosaurus mistelgauensis, named today after UMO's prime excavation site, the Jurassic clay pit Mistelgau. @olorotitan.bsky.social beautifully reconstructed the to-be fossil on a belemnite battleground typical for the locality.
September 25, 2025 at 2:36 PM
The Nuremberg Zoo has mata mata (Chelus fimbriatus) turtles!! 🐢😍 I remember my first Chelus skull encounter as a major „WTF nature“ moment - so cool to see a living one at least.
August 31, 2025 at 11:23 AM
And, Tyler Lyson and his team published a new pan-chelydrid turtle from the early Danian of Colorado, which I had the pleasure to see in Tyler's office pre-publication last year. Welcome, Tavachelydra stevensoni!

sjpp.springeropen.com/articles/10....
August 6, 2025 at 5:22 AM
Interestingly, our (preliminary) data suggest that sexual shape dimorphism in turtles is negligible when compared to ontogenetic change & interspecific differences even b/w closely related species.
August 5, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Our main question: How big are turtles in terms of shell size (an oft available & easy to measure property) when ‘adult shape’ is reached. When we define adult shape as having reached 85% the shape difference b/w small juveniles & extremely large adults, the answer is at 65% max shell length
August 5, 2025 at 8:24 PM
We then developed ontogenetic shell shape curves, analog to growth curves. Shell shape (measured w 2 methods) is plotted against shell size. These plots show generally that shell shape changes through growth, but shell shape change slows down to converge on an ‘adult shape’
August 5, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Disparity between species is lower when only juveniles are considered, whereas intermediate sized & adult turtles have significantly increased disparity. This suggest that many lineage specific features of shell shape that cause this disparity appear only during postnatal ontogeny.
August 5, 2025 at 8:24 PM
We took a large pre-existing turtle shell shape dataset fr Tristan Stayton’s work 🙏 We identified species specific datasets w large size variance to test for ontogenetic patterns - & they exist. Most turtles start w rounded shells as juveniles, possibly a developmental constraint related to swimming
August 5, 2025 at 8:24 PM
If you are in Bayreuth, please stop by our museum - and if you are interested in collection visits, please reach out!

This is a permanent academic position in palaeontology - I am happy to have made it this far & am thankful to a great many people who helped me along the way 🙏
August 3, 2025 at 7:39 PM
With the museum team, my job will be to renew the exhibits, organize special exhibits, continue & expand excavations in Mistelgau, curate and organize collections, facilitate research & continue my own research. The job is very multifaceted, & I am excited for all parts of it!
August 3, 2025 at 7:39 PM
I am happy to announce that as of this month, I am the new director of the Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken, with its >600m2 exhibit halls in the center of Bayreuth and a rich Triassic-Jurassic marine reptile collection from Muschelkalk deposits & Mistelgau alongside a rich Jurassic plant collection & more
August 3, 2025 at 7:39 PM
The latest Turtle Evolution Symposium paper in our TES Special Volume: Rollot et al. describe a new species of carettochelyid turtle from the Miocene of Egypt, and name it Allaeochelys meylani, after Peter Meylan, who published a lot of trionychian research.

sjpp.springeropen.com/articles/10....
June 21, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Today, I submitted my habilitation at the Uni of Fribourg! I taught more than 100 hours of palaeontology & historical geology over the last years - happy to finally have gotten all requirements together…
June 3, 2025 at 5:23 PM
@heatherfsmith.bsky.social and colleagues published on a new Maastrichtian ctenochelyid sea turtle, Asmodochelys leviathan.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
May 20, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Turtle-free week! On a family holiday in the Allgäu. Learning how to ski in parallel with my daughter and her cousins.
January 29, 2025 at 9:20 AM
In their data, the flat-shelled fossil turtle Basilemys plotted as one of the highest domed species - & we found more problems w data & analyses when dissecting the study. After data corrections & usage of PCMs, we show that the central claims of the original paper cannot be upheld.
January 3, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Successful weekend when the little one says “Mathilda happy” before she falls asleep on the train back :)
November 17, 2024 at 1:04 PM
Nice weekend vibes from Graubünden! Mountains are always best for re-charging 🗻☀️😍
November 16, 2024 at 2:43 PM